


The Importance of When

by Ammar



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Forum: Goldenlake, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 05:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11075424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ammar/pseuds/Ammar
Summary: Alan of Pirate's Swoop has always been a bit odd.





	The Importance of When

He dreams of it; know’s it’s important, the way he knows where his own hand is, the way he knows when his sister, his twin, is afraid or in danger. A ruined temple, and the soot-encrusted sword, protruding from blackened stone, arcane sigils scrawled all over.  
  
Thom leaves for the University, returns with his nose buried in one book or another. All of them esoteric, of course, and not particularly interesting. Aly, meanwhile, attaches herself to their father at the hip, taking to the basics of spycraft like a duck to water; the rest of the time, she’s driving their Ma to distraction and moving from fling to fling.  
  
She’s chafing at this life, Alan knows, with the same sense that told him Aly needed help when she’d fallen partway down one of the cliffs and broke her arm when they were five. Aly thrives on challenges, but neither Ma or Da will let her near one, and for all Ma talks about her days as a knight, it’s plain as day that it’s not what Aly wants.  
  
He practices his swordwork, drifts, and waits.  
  
They’re different, for all they’re twins. Aly’s restlessness doesn’t bleed into him; his twin is fire, undirected, burning everywhere; he’s water, or a leaf on water. It doesn’t bother him, that he’s almost thirteen and still at the fief, still hasn’t made something of himself. It is enough for the leaf to follow the path of the water.  
  
Aly wants to make something of herself; she wants to be a spy, an agent.  
  
Alan plays chess with his grandfather and wins seven games out of ten. “You’re good at this,” Sir Myles says, regarding him speculatively.  
  
Alan shrugs, wordlessly. He knows what Aly doesn’t, what Sir Myles doesn’t: he knows where they’re going to be, where the pieces fall, where a clever person can play a knight just so—so that the pieces fall; not because of the knight, but because in the larger scheme of things, they were already going to fall.  
  
After all, you can tell the path the leaf will take by examining the course of the river.  
  


* * *

  
  
There is an art to doing things well.  
  
Many people Alan knows struggle with how to do things; really, Alan thinks, they ought to be concerned with _when_ to do things. Success is about doing things at the proper time.  
  
He doesn’t always know why, though, or what he’s looking for. The leaf, after all, cannot always see the course of the entire river. So it is that when word reaches Pirate’s Swoop of the death of Sir Glasidan of Haryse and the entire First Company of the King’s Own, he’s terrified but at the same time, he _knows_ that it’s the right time; it has to be done now.  
  
He knocks on the door of his Ma’s study.  
  
His Ma’s there, holding the battered mirror with roses painted at the back (Thom’s gift, even before he’d known how much it’d peeved Ma though she’d never admit it) and for a moment, Alan sees the fear, the helplessness, the vulnerability on his Ma’s face as her efforts turn up nothing at all, and then she turns to him, the violet glow of her Gift already fading from her free hand.  
  
“Alan?” she asks. “What is it?”  
  
He takes in a deep breath. “Ma, I’d like to go to Corus to train for my knighthood,” he informs her.  
  
Pride mingles with confusion; she reaches out and hugs him, fiercely. “You shouldn’t have waited,” she murmurs, and then, “I’m so proud of you, Alan.” It’s a decision she can understand, of course; unlike Aly’s.  
  
“The time wasn’t right, Ma,” Alan explains, even though he knows she won’t understand. They very rarely do.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Who is willing to sponsor Alan of Pirate’s Swoop?” The training master demands, and Alan notices a few of the assembled pages curling their lips. Of course; everyone knows his Da was common as dirt, elevated to the nobility for being the king’s pet thief (or so they say, behind his back), and the bluest of blood that runs in his veins comes from his Ma so that isn’t very much better—half of them’d like nothing better than to set the Lioness on fire and forget about her chapter in the history of Tortall.  
  
He doesn’t say anything, just waits. It’s the tall, dark-haired boy, the one who wears his tunic just slightly rumpled, hands stuck in his pockets, sleek and dangerous. He looks at him and knows, instantly. But it isn’t the right time, yet, and so Alan bites his tongue and says nothing at all.  
  
“I’m waiting,” Lord Padraig haMinch says, and he does appear as if he could wait all day, for the right time. That, Alan decides, is a man who knows about the importance of when.  
  
Idly, Alan wonders if it was ever this bad with the girl-page his Ma’s been keeping tabs on; that Keladry of Mindelan.  
  
Someone nudges that tall boy, who uncoils, enough to murmur, “I will, my lord.”  
  
Lord haMinch raises an eyebrow but simply nods and says, “So be it,” and Alan slips over to join his new sponsor.  
  
“Who is willing to sponsor Josh of Greywatch?” Lord haMinch moves on to the next page in the queue, while Alan’s new sponsor is looking him over.  
  
Eventually, the tall boy says, “You’re not what I expected.”  
  
Alan says, coolly, “What did you expect?”  
  
Abruptly, his sponsor grins; and there it is, that trace of Thayet the Peerless, in his smile. “Got me there,” he admits. “Thought you’d be more like your mother.”  
  
“Everyone does,” Alan says.  
  
“So I see,” Prince Liam of Conté says, thoughtfully. “And you’re old.”  
  
Alan shrugs. He could, of course, observe that Prince Liam, too, is old for a page, but it wouldn’t be the best comment to make. Instead: “It wasn’t the right time,” he says, by way of explanation. “It is, now.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Prince Jasson, Liam’s younger brother, makes himself known, after Alan beats up Malik ibn Zahar on the training field. It’s something that takes everyone by surprise, because Alan hasn’t been excelling. Instead, he’s content to drift about in the classes, getting by, without becoming one of the shining stars of his year.  
  
That morning, though, it is different.  
  
Malik ibn Zahar sneers something about the Lioness and her brats; about how even his mother’s lying, cheating ways can’t save him. He _might_ have added something about how his mother deserved to lie for the Stormwings. Alan can’t quite remember. It’s irrelevant, anyhow.  
  
The entire training yard goes silent. There’s really only one thing Alan can do, and they all know it.  
  
He advances to meet Malik—one of the best swordsmen in this generation of pages, they’re calling him, and Malik’s toyed with him with casual cruelty over the past sessions, never quite pulling his blows, always jabbing the blunted edge of his wooden sword into Alan’s ribs.  
  
Now, though: Alan beats aside the blows and simply keeps advancing. Malik’s attacks, after all, fall into patterns: startlingly sophisticated ones, to be sure, but they’re patterns no less, which means they can be exploited and that’s exactly what Alan does. He isn’t there when the blows fall, or he makes sure his sword is, and he examines the patterns and strikes the second the opening presents itself.  
  
And then—his wooden blade is pressed tight against Malik’s throat.  
  
Malik treats him with a rough respect after that. Some of the other pages do, but their wariness fades when it’s clear than Alan isn’t going to be a fencing genius like his famed mother, when he collapses back into mediocrity in the following classes.  
  
But Prince Jasson is watching, and Prince Jasson _is_ impressed, and that’s all that matters, even though Alan doesn’t quite know it then, hadn’t quite known it when he’d fought Malik in that way.  
  
“I didn’t know you’re that good with a sword,” Jasson remarks, bluntly, seating himself opposite Alan. His older brother sighs, and Jasson ignores that, leaning forward, Conté blue eyes intent on Alan.  
  
Alan lifts his chin and says, “I try, your Highness.”  
  
Jasson grins. “Jasson,” he says, holding out a hand.  
  
Alan takes it.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jasson is the hellion; Liam is the scoundrel. Liam is the one who saunters through training (just like Alan does, really) and flirts shamelessly with the ladies; Jasson, much like his namesake, is preoccupied with the arts of war and has barely a moment for those he feels just aren’t good enough to keep up.  
  
But Alan fascinates him, somehow, and even when Alan fumbles a block or forgets to keep his hands far apart enough on the staff’s haft (getting his fingers mashed for his trouble), Jasson’s still there, gazing at him thoughtfully. None of them’ve quite tried for their knighthoods on time, Liam says, once, but then—where’s the need to hurry?  
  
Alan corrects him. They’ve begun their training exactly at the right time, he says. But neither Liam nor Jasson can really quite appreciate that.  
  


* * *

  
  
There are others, of course. Grey-eyed Theodric of Kinsgrove, who seems to grasp the complex nuances of geopolitics in an eyeblink, and stocky Wilfrid of Tarrant, who never loses even once at a round of King of the Circle.  
  
It’s easy, in a way. Alan could do it if he cared to.  
  
Lord haMinch draws a chalk circle on the ground of the practice courts. The defenders crowd the circle—sometimes one page, sometimes several, testing out the length of their wooden staves. Sometimes, they’re permitted swords. And always, the objective is to defend that circle: their circle. The rest of the pages attack; Wilfrid seems unbeatable as he whirls the staff about and beats off all opposition.  
  
“There’s only one person who’s better,” Liam comments, once. Alan knows, immediately, who he’s talking about.  
  
It’s always Jasson.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jasson shows him, one day. He takes him down, into the bowels of the palace, where the catacombs are, with only the blue light gleaming from his outstretched hand as a guide. Water drips; the air is cool against Alan’s skin.  
  
And then, eventually, past the long line of tombs; past the unbroken line of Conté kings and queens and princes and princesses, all lying sentinel, they emerge into an open space.  
  
“They say this used to be a temple,” Jasson remarks, idly, “No one knows to which god, though. It’s long forgotten.”  
  
The light of his Gift illuminates the blackened sigils sketched out on the stone; the darkened sword, protruding in the centre, like a post; like a marker.  
  
Silent. Waiting.  
  
Alan almost—almost stretches his hand out. But it’s not the right time, he knows, not yet. Around them, the darkness pools, almost the hue of crusted blood.  
  
“You come here a lot, don’t you?” he asks, neutrally.  
  
Jasson laughs. “What gave it away?” he wants to know.  
  
“You’re familiar with the place,” Alan explains. “You didn’t hesitate. You just moved.”  
  
Jasson nods, shortly. “We’re not banned from coming here,” he comments. “But many of the pages don’t like to come here. There’s something almost eerie about the catacombs. And no one really likes to be near the spot where the crazy Duke Roger died.”  
  
“I’d bet,” Alan murmurs, inspecting the designs drawn. Thom’d be able to make sense of them, he finds himself thinking. Himself, he’s seen them often enough in the sword-dreams.  
  
“They used to dare each other to spend the night here,” Jasson adds, almost as an afterthought. “Or to draw the Lioness’s sword…”  
  
His hand reaches out, almost-caresses the hilt.  
  
Alan’s breath catches. His hand falls on Jasson’s shoulder.  
  
Jasson turns, draws up short. “What is it?”  
  
Not the right time, Alan thinks, _knows_. It isn’t right, but the only thing he can say is, “Not now. We’re going to be late.”  
  
Jasson cocks his head, curious. “We can’t even hear the bells, this deep,” he points out. “How’d you know?”  
  
Alan just shrugs and turns and keeps walking. A few moments later, he hears the soft sound of Jasson’s boots, following.  
  


* * *

  
  
“ _Don’t draw it_ ,” Thom snaps, as soon as Alan begins. Alan hesitates, immediately, and Thom chews his lip and finally says, “Wait.”  
  
Alan waits, obediently, until Thom snaps his fingers and a wall of purple light flares into existence around them. “All right, now go on,” Thom mutters, bending over the sheet of parchment. And then: “Are you _absolutely_ sure?”  
  
“Positive,” Alan says, inking in the last sigils, and setting down the Tyran glass pen. He looks Thom straight in the eye and says, “I’ve dreamed about this, for a very long time.”  
  
Thom’s one of the few who either understands, or who doesn’t care. Alan’s yet to quite figure out which.  
  
Thom nods, slowly. “All right,” his older brother says, studying the parchment. “It’s the one Ma went up against, isn’t it? Because this sigil—“ he traces what Alan instinctively understands to be the central sigil, right there, “—this one is the anchor sigil, the one you draw _first_ , to create a Gate of Idramm. The Gate summons the Abyssal Powers—”  
  
“Plain Common,” Alan interjects.  
  
Thom scowls and runs a hand through his flame-red hair. Either that’s stubble, Alan thinks, or he’s trying to grow a beard. Trying very hard, really: it’s almost pathetic, that stubble. “Demons,” he says, finally. “Things that don’t exist here—things that exist in the cracks of reality, outside of Father Flame and Mother Universe.”  
  
“That’s bad,” Alan says.  
  
“You think?” Thom demands, almost derivisively. “It gets better. Look: normally, a mage who does want to summon demons’d add in limiting sigils. Things to make sure the demon goes back when the task is done, and that it doesn’t eat your brains. This one, though—it doesn’t have any limiters. In fact, the sigils are designed specifically to devour more and more power and to use that to tear open an absolutely huge rent in the fabric of Mother Universe.” He sits back in his chair and shakes his head. “Unbelievable. It’s brilliant, and absolutely insane.”  
  
“But it’s inactive,” Alan clarifies.  
  
“It is,” Thom says. “For now.”  
  
“I know,” Alan says, softly. He traces a few of the sigils with his fingers. It’s strangely a relief to hear Thom say that, really. But it’s only a matter of time.  
  


* * *

  
  
“What happened, down in the catacombs, during the coronation?” Alan hesitantly asks his Ma, once. He’s thought about broaching the subject before, but the time wasn’t right. Truth to be told, he’s not quite sure it’s the right time now, either. He’s good but not infallible and sometimes the skeins of time are all twisted about in his eyes and his Sight doesn’t show him what it _needs_ to.  
  
It’s different for Aly. It’s always different for Aly.  
  
His Ma straightens up, at once; flinches, in fact. She puts the whetstone down, the drawn sword balance precariously across her thighs. “Haven’t I told you the story before?” she asks, sharply, eyes narrowed.  
  
Alan shrugs.  
  
His Ma says, then, “Duke Roger was trying to destroy the land. He’d gone mad, I think, by the time Th—my brother’d raised him from the Sleep. He didn’t care for taking the throne any longer. He just wanted to destroy everything.” Her gaze is distant. “I think he’d decided that if he couldn’t have Tortall, no one should have it.”  
  
“But you stopped him, you and Da and everyone.”  
  
“Yes,” she nods. “We did. I fought Alex—Sir Alex of Tirragen,” she clarifies, “To get down to the catacombs. And then Roger was there.” She frowns, as though she’s forgotten something. “We fought. I ran him through with Lightning.”  
  
“What happened to Lightning?”  
  
The reply is slow, ponderous; his Ma speaks as though she’s fighting to remember something, as though her thoughts’re swimming in honey. “I think…” she murmurs, almost to herself. “I lost it, somewhere. In the catacombs.”  
  
He _sees_ it, then; blood-red threads like acid, stretching out into the distance, binding his Ma and he’d bet that if he went back down and looked at the sword, he’d see more of the threads, extending outwards in a tracery of forgetting. “Where, Ma?” he prods. “What happened?”  
  
It’s not the right time, though; he knows that the moment the words escape his lips, and for all his Ma fumbles with the memories, they won’t come out just right, and so he closes the topic by speaking vaguely of the classes and the other pages and his Ma just sighs and says, almost sadly, “You’re growing up fast, you know?” And then, more wistfully: “I wish your sister did, too.”  
  
It’s not the right time for Aly, Alan wants to tell her. But he doesn’t.  
  


* * *

  
  
“You’re spending an awful lot of time with my brother,” Liam comments, one day; as if he’s commenting about the weather, rather than paying attention to the latest assignment from Lindhall Reed. The Gifted pages are spending these last few lessons under Lindhall Reed, while the unGifted pages, like Alan, are learning about countering mages from Numair Salmalin.  
  
Neither does Wilfrid of Tarrant; their fellow page is all but dozing off over the assignment, a thin line of drool coming from his mouth.  
  
Alan shrugs. “Or Jasson’s spending an awful lot of time with me,” he replies.  
  
“The difference being?” Liam drawls.  
  
The difference, Alan thinks, being that he’d take Liam’s languid insouciance any day over Jasson’s almost-physical aura of self-confidence, of invincibility. He does say that last bit, and Liam laughs.  
  
“Jasson’s always been like that,” he murmurs, dryly. “I suppose we needed at least someone to represent all the conquerors in the Conté line.”  
  
“And you?” Alan wants to know. “Who are you then, Liam?”  
  
Liam raises an elegant eyebrow. “Apparently, I’m the one who breaks hearts,” he says, with deceptive casualness.  
  
“We’re not our ancestors,” Alan replies. “Neither are we our parents.”  
  
It’s not quite the right time yet, but he’s planted, at the very least, the seed.  
  


* * *

  
  
One day, late into the winter, Alan wakes up, traces the lines of frost on his window-pane, and just _knows_. He changes, quickly; pulling on some clothing, putting on his boots. He hesitates but leaves the sword behind.  
  
Instead, he pockets a handful of charcoal.  
  
He leaves, closing the door of his room behind him, and moves down the hallway, heading for the catacombs when—  
  
Liam is there, a sword belted to his side, arms folded across his chest. Liam says, and it’s not a question, “You know when your twin is in trouble.”  
  
Alan nods.  
  
“Jasson and I were always close. Even if we’re not twins.”  
  
Alan jerks his head for Liam to follow, and they go on, descending into the bowels of the palace.  
  


* * *

  
  
It’s cold, in the catacombs, and Alan wonders if he should’ve brought a coat. But it’s too late to turn back now, and the sickening bloody glow tells him he’s _right_ ; that he made the right decision.  
  
The screams are loud now, shapes dancing at the corner of his vision, and some of the creaks from the tombs _are absolutely not encouraging_. Liam strides by his side, white-lipped, fingers clenched around the hilt of his sword.  
  
“You know things,” Liam says, breaking the silence.  
  
Alan doesn’t reply.  
  
So Liam says it again. “You know things.”  
  
“Everyone does,” Alan finally says.  
  
“Not like you.”  
  
“I have the Sight,” Alan says, casually. “You know that. Comes from my Da.”  
  
“I’ve met your Da,” Liam replies. “He’s nothing like you.”  
  
“What am I, then?” Alan whispers.  
  
He doesn’t know if it is or isn’t the right time; it’s hard to tell here, as orange-tinged shades of men and women stream past his vision and he can’t decide if they’re friend or foe, his attention is all but overloaded and only the sense it is time, he has to be there is impelling him forward.  
  
Liam says, lightly, a heartbeat later, “My friend.” He takes Alan by the elbow and guides him ever forward.  
  


* * *

  
  
As the catacombs widen into the fallen, forgotten temple, the sense of magic in the air, crackling potential, grows. Even Liam can see the dried-blood glow in the air now, and he bites his lip and whispers, “That’s not good. Father told us a bit about this.”  
  
“So did my Ma,” Alan says, quietly. He steps forward, into the bloodied light.  
  
Jasson stands by the stone-sheathed sword, his hands burning incandescent with his Gift, the Conté Gift, a welcome blaze of blue.  
  
“Jasson!” Liam cries out, and Jasson looks up, and his expression shifts; mingling both guilt and fury.  
  
He doesn’t let go; he squares his shoulders and _leans_ in and then pulls—  
  
“Father couldn’t draw it,” Liam says, quickly, worried. “I’m not sure what he thinks he’s trying to do.”  
  
Alan takes another step forward.  
  
The blade of the Lioness—Lightning—slides free of its stone sheath, as if all Jasson had done was to draw a knife from butter. The blackened sigils on the stone are glowing, now, a sullen, dull reddish brown of blood, beneath the soot and scorch marks.  
  
And then it happens.  
  
Jasson cries out: the veins in his neck bulge as he struggles, but the sword in his hand moves him, twisting him about so he points the blade directly forward, directly at Alan.  
  
The voice that comes from his lips is his, of course. But it’s so much more; there’s an echo of another voice, an elegant, deep voice.  
  
A Duke’s voice, Alan thinks, trying to swallow his fear.  
  
“What do we have here? Another Conté, and a curious boy? Tell me, boy. Who are you?”  
  
He’s slightly surprised, Alan will admit, that it’s not at all obvious. He takes yet another step forward: he’s only a little removed, now, from the dangerous point of Lightning, the killing tip. He breathes and says, “I’m Alan of Trebond.”  
  
Trebond isn’t his fief, not any longer, but he _knows_ then, who this is, who is riding Jasson, the way a rider would a horse, and he knows that the name of ‘Pirate’s Swoop’ has absolutely no meaning to the undead Duke of Conté.  
  
Jasson smiles, an eerie expression, knowing and hateful.  
  
“The Lioness’s get,” he murmurs. “How appropriate…”  
  
He takes one more step forward. He’s close enough to look into Not-Jasson’s eyes now. They’re Conté blue, unlike Liam’s hazel. There’s a strong connection between the Gift and eye colour, but the two don’t always coincide.  
  
“My Ma thought she’d beaten you for good,” he says. “She always felt uneasy here, though.”  
  
“And?” Not-Jasson cocks an eyebrow. “You think the same story will play out here again, Alan of Trebond?” He grins, baring his teeth in a knife-edge smile. “I think not.”  
  
And then he runs Alan through.  
  


* * *

  
  
He _has_ to be here: at this particular space, at this particular time.  
  
Liam is screaming behind him as Jasson or the Duke twists the blade again and again, looking at him with a sort of detached, sadistic interest. And Alan realises he is screaming too because it _hurts_ like blazes and knowing that it has to happen, that it’s the right time (for what?) doesn’t make it any less painful.  
  
His blood is seeping down, to the particular activation-sigil he’s standing on, and the moment the blood touches the sigil, it flares to life, now burning with a bright, bloody, unholy fire.  
  
And then he _looks_ at Jasson again, and Sees, and now he sees three men, not two: he sees Jasson, and a bearded man, handsome, perhaps, but quite twisted, and he sees a final man, with hair the same copper as Alan’s and he knows who this man is, even before his eyes shift to meet the man’s violet eyes.  
  
He’s bleeding out onto the floor, and Alan knows this, and realises he doesn’t really know what Liam is doing, but he really hopes it isn’t anything stupid, because the Duke is howling in cheated rage to discover that Alan actually doesn’t have a Gift at all, that he only has the Sight, because if there’s anything that would supercharge the Gate of Idramm, it’s the Trebond Gift, but the only thing Alan has is the Sight.  
  
“Nephew,” Thom says, with a nod of his head. There’s a weariness in that gesture too, along with resignation, and Alan can only wonder how it must’ve been, being bound to the sword for decades with the mad Conté Duke. Still, Thom grins, flashing brilliant white teeth, and he’s so far from the sullen, lonely figure that his Ma describes that Alan…just doesn’t know. “Nice to see someone’s keeping up the tradition of stopping the madman from destroying everything.”  
  
Alan shrugs. “I do my best.”  
  
How do you prepare yourself to die and to talk to your long-dead uncle in the same day?  
  
Fumbling, Alan reaches into his pocket and slides out the charcoal sticks, scattering them clumsily and praying to the gods and especially the Great Mother Goddess that Liam will figure out what he needs to do.  
  
He still doesn’t know _what_ he has to do: he only knows that he has to be right here, right now—that he has to stop Liam from being sacrificed to power the Gate and that means it’s got to be him.  
  
How long has it been?  
  
“You’ve been bound to him,” Alan whispers. “All these years, we were thinking you’d passed into the Peaceful Realms…Ma made the offerings, named Thom after you…”  
  
Thom’s eyes are bright. He says, “I made my choice, Alan. I’m doing my own part, now.” He motions Alan closer and hands him a sword of bright burning amethyst.  
  
“Is that…”  
  
“Only a piece of it,” Thom says, crisply. “Do you know what you have to do, Nephew?”  
  
Alan hesitates. And then, he _sees_ , again, in utter clarity. He knows. He nods. Thom claps him on the shoulder, taking his time about it, because time means nothing, here.  
  
“We don’t choose our family,” Thom whispers. “But I’m glad to have known you.”  
  
“Ma never said you were sentimental,” Alan informs him.  
  
Thom laughs. “I’m old, now. Old uncle’s privilege. Besides,” and there’s that touch of sadness, of weariness again. “Death gives you a new sort of perspective.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Alan opens his eyes, really _opens_ his eyes, now, and he’s on his knees, still weakening, still bleeding out, the gifted blade in his hand, and Jasson is close because if you’re close enough to run a person through with the sword, then you’re close enough to be cut by another.  
  
He reaches out with the blade and _cuts_ and—  
  
He cuts Roger from Jasson and Roger from Thom, and he saws at the blood-red threads lancing out from Roger to everyone, even the orange-tinged shades, those who died during the Sickness, and the Duke of Conté is howling in fury; blood-edged fires batter him, devour him, incinerate him, and still, Alan is cutting—  
  
“Who are you?” Liam is demanding, and he hears the sound of a sword clattering to the ground, and really, Liam is never going to hear the end of it if he drops his sword like this.  
  
Purple fire springs to life, bathing the room in its glow, and Alan smiles and knows and _cuts_.  
  


* * *

  
  
The blade dissolves in his hands at the final cut, and then Roger is free, but so is Thom, and his uncle’s shade grabs Roger with hands burning incandescent and grins at the expression of fury on the other man’s face.  
  
“Not like this,” Thom says, and Roger knows he’s been had, and the orange flare—orange, now—of his Gift rises to his own hands, but Thom has him, has him good, and then a dark shadow falls upon all of them, Thom, Roger, and Alan, and the Black God sweeps into the chamber to claim his own.  
  
He can’t explain, even later, how it feels when the Black God’s gaze falls upon him: a robed figure whose gaze…contains eternity. The infinity of souls that have passed and will pass through his hands into the Peaceful Realms.  
  
The Black God stretches out his hand—  
  
And then.  
  
And then Liam is by Alan’s side, a wellspring of sapphire blue light, and smiling politely at the Black God, and, “No, you can’t have him. Not yet. He’s my friend.”  
  
And then the blue light washes up and sears and burns the wound shut, and the Black God nods to the Conté prince and to Alan and _winks_ , at least that’s the sense Alan gets, and then withdraws, melting into shadow, into the gloom.  
  
And then—  
  
Blackness.  
  


* * *

  
  
Alan’s eyes open, and after a few moments, he realises he’s in his room, tucked into his bed, and his Ma is there, and she’s never looked so furious or relieved or terrified, so he keeps his mouth shut as she hugs him and tells him that if he does something like that again, she’s going to drag him back to the Swoop and give him to Wyldon of Cavall.  
  
Alan’s not quite sure what’s wrong with that, but he’s not going to be the one to give his Ma ideas, so he just expresses contrition.  
  
“Thom told me,” she says, and for a moment, Alan’s head spins before he realises she’s referring to his brother, not hers. “Something about the Gate of Idramm beneath the palace being reactivated.”  
  
Alan nods, slowly. His abdomen hurts, still; he’s not sure whether it’s from Liam’s healing or from something else, and his Ma notices and takes his hand in hers, and he feels the torrent of healing pouring in from her.  
  
“Your friend did a poor job of healing you,” his Ma says, simply. “It’s not his fault—he simply was never trained as a healer, and healing doesn’t tend to run in the Conté line, so he simply cauterised everything. I did what I could for those scars, and so did Duke Baird, but we have our limits.”  
  
“He saved me,” Alan whispers, thinking of the Black God, sweeping in to claim that which was his.  
  
“I have no doubt of it,” his Ma replies. “You nearly died.”  
  
“I know,” Alan says.  
  
They sit there, for a while, in silence.  
  
“I always had a bad feeling, around that Gate,” his Ma says, at last. “Jon told me it was fine, there wasn’t anything left. But I think you’ve all proven both of us wrong. So, what happened, down there?”  
  
“Thom already told you,” he croaks, and she reaches for a pitcher of water, pours some in a cup, and has him drink it, her eyes never leaving him.  
  
“So he did,” his Ma acknowledges. “But I want to hear from you.” A faint smile touches her features. “Besides, I still need to decide on your punishment.”  
  
So he tells her, haltingly. About just _knowing_ , about the dreams of the sword and the stone, about the Sight—his Sight—and about Thom and Roger, about what his uncle said, and about how it ended, Thom and Roger taken by the Black God,  
  
She doesn’t interrupt him, but at points, she scrubs furiously at her eyes with her sleeve.  
  
“I didn’t know,” his Ma says, at the end, her voice thick with emotion. With love, and with old sorrow uncovered. “All these years…”  
  
“They’re in the hands of the Black God now,” Alan says.  
  
“I know,” his Ma says, and now she’s smiling, through the tears. She takes his hand and whispers, “Thank you. I’m proud of you too, Alan.”  
  
It’s the right time, now, has been for a while, and so he manages, “I love you Ma,” and melts into her hug and they stay like this, for an interminable amount of time.  
  


* * *

  
  
_(In the Peaceful Realms, a ghost smiles.)_

**Author's Note:**

> A glorious mess. Done for Goldenlake's International Exchange, for the prompt, "Someone pulls Lightning out from the stone."
> 
> What would it be like to have the Sight - not to see lies, but (like George did), to see people you knew were significant, and you had to meet. Ramp that up several levels to a kind of prescience. And throw in a different sort of attitude: it's not about trying to change the future. As Kurt Vonnegut puts it, “Be patient. Your future will soon come to you and lie down at your feet like a dog who knows and loves you no matter what you are.”
> 
> Premises behind this quasi-cracky fic:
> 
> 1\. We know Alanna and co. stop talking about elementals, or spirits, or demons, or Gates of Idramm by the time it reaches Kel's years: in fact, the Gate seems more or less forgotten about, as is that aspect of magic. Here, I suggest that such a forgetting is intentional.
> 
> 2\. The Sweating Sickness wasn't just meant to kill: when it talks about the healers being drained and a magically-brewed Sweating Sickness, it was meant to bind the dead to Roger, effectively as batteries. So they never managed to even reach the Peaceful Realms, consistent with the claim that no one can rip a soul from the Peaceful Realms once the Black God has them. Therefore, even until Alan's days, they were tied to Roger and unable to move on.
> 
> 3\. It reinterprets the final confrontation between Alanna and Duke Roger: if Duke Roger worked the Sorcerer's Sleep the first time, does the Sleep still hold him for the second time? Etcetera. When Duke Roger laughs when Lightning runs him through, he's not being hysterical: he's bound himself to the sword and Thom with him (since Thom is tied to him, magically, from resurrecting him.) And so he's essentially just been waiting for a better moment and time.
> 
> 4\. Jon couldn't draw the sword because he wasn't a suitable host. Jasson was. Roger was looking for someone with both Conté blood (or Trebond blood, since he could've worked through Thom) and the Gift, and Jon and Alanna are too well-protected. That someone was Jasson. He overwhelmed him through the blood connection and physical contact and took over.
> 
> 5\. The ultimate plan was to sacrifice someone to refuel the Gate of Idramm and to use the collected power to rip that gigantic hole [=turning Tortall into Demon Central, killing everyone, destroying it.]


End file.
